


Self-contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

by therudestflower



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: Gen, Philip's childhood, pretty angsty, unstable home enviroment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 18:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8763964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therudestflower/pseuds/therudestflower
Summary: In third grade Philip had three teachers, lost two teeth, and learned how to survive underwater.





	

In third grade Philip had three teachers, lost two teeth, and learned how to survive underwater. 

The first teacher was sunny-eyed Ms. Gillard. Looking back Ms. Gillard was probably all of twenty-two, a Minnesota transplant who had no business in cutting her teeth in a school where guns were found in kindergarteners backpacks on a regular basis. All she seemed to say was "Let's quiet down please" and "If you could just simmer down a sec." It'd be nice if his classmates listened and stopped throwing stuff, but it was kind of dumb of Ms. Gillard to think someone would calm down just because you wanted them to.

When she wasn't begging them to be quiet she talked to them like they were collective roadkill she was trying to coax back to life. Whenever she talked to Philip he felt like she was seconds away from sobbing, even if he was just asking her what a dentist was, or something. He didn't really mind when she disappeared the day after Jun-young freaked out and threw a desk out the window. 

Philip didn't remember much of her next replacement, just that he was older and yelled a lot and Philip learned how to tell time really fast by counting down until it was lunch time, then until it was time to leave school and he could go to the Boys and Girls club where none of the teachers yelled. One day the principal showed up saying that their teacher wouldn't be back, and Philip didn't mind then either. 

Their third teacher was The Colonel, who came out of retirement just to finish out the year with them. Other kids in his class said that the Colonel had been their parent's teacher and that he was "a beast." And that he'd killed Hitler. The entire school believed he'd killed Hitler. 

The Colonel didn't yell, he didn't even talk really. He just played video after video from the Nature Channel. Sometimes when he ran out of videos to play that day he declared it reading time, and stared at the class daring them to make a noise. 

In February he played a series of videos about scuba diving. The first video was a scuba diving training video. People put on weird bathing suits and put a thing in their mouth that let them breathe underwater then they went right to the bottom of a pool and just stayed there. They weren't afraid that they were going to run out of air. They weren't afraid that any of the other divers were going to hold them down. They just floated. The just were fine. 

The next video showed how sound doesn't travel the same under water. No one could talk to the scuba divers. If there were people screaming or guns going off underwater the scuba divers might not even hear it. 

Philip had never been underwater. Sometimes the places they lived had bathtubs but he never had the urge to take a bath, because he'd probably drown. His mom took him to the public pool once, and they put their legs in the pool. But they left in a hurry because she saw Rick and she owed Rick a lot of money so they needed to leave real fast, right now, or he would drown them. 

Philip was still pretty sure that if he really went underwater, even with an oxygen thing, he'd drown. But he still couldn't stop thinking about it. If he was underwater there'd be no noise, no one could touch him. He'd be okay. Philip had tried everything else he could think of. He went to the Boys and Girls club as much as they'd let him, sometimes he lay in bed with his hands over his ears and pretended he was on a spaceship. Being underwater would work. He just had to figure out how to do it without going into water. 

When he got home he turned on the TV and flipped through the channels, hoping a scuba diving program would be on. Even when it got to be almost midnight and he knew he should be asleep. This was too important. He found a movie about Hawaii and stood in front to the TV, waiting to see someone underwater. 

When he heard the front door open he ran into the bathroom, not even stopping to turn off the TV. "Sweetie!" his mom called, but he didn't stop. If Mom was home then Charlie was home and who knows what would happen. They might just get high and sit on the couch or it might be something worse. He didn't want to see that. He didn't want Charlie anywhere near him. Philip knew it made him a bad son, but he just wanted to be underwater right now. 

Philip locked the door just in time for Charlie to start pulling on it, yelling "Hey! Hey! Come say hello to your mama! Don't treat her this way!" Philip looked at the bathtub and quickly decided it was too risky. He picked a washcloth up off the floor, stuck it over the sink drain and turned on the water full blast. 

The pipes squealed as water rushed through them, and the sound of the water hitting the sink filled up the room. It drowned out the sound of Charlie pounding on the door. It drowned everything out. 

Closing his eyes, he saw himself putting on the oxygen mask and jumping into the water. Philip skimmed his fingers in the water and felt himself sink to the bottom of a giant pool. He spread his arms out. With his eyes closed and water all around him he heard nothing. 

Just him and the water and nothing else at all.


End file.
